Last week we heard that Motorola invested in ScanLife/ScanBuy. Now we’re hearing about ANOTHING investment with ANOTHER application developer with a heavy foot in the Android door. In a press release published today, Motorola announced their investment in TuneWiki.
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We first wrote about TuneWiki way back on May 10th, 2008 on our post about the ADC Round 1 winners. They’ve come a LONG way since then and are now one of the most popular applications on Android Market.
Not too long ago Motorola was considered to be selling its handset division. Now, not only is their handset division doing well, they’re investing in related company’s on the software side to strengthen their position in mobile.
Here is the full press release:
Motorola Ventures Leads Financing for TuneWiki
February 08, 2010SCHAUMBURG, Ill. and TEL AVIV, Israel – Feb. 8, 2010 – Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), through its strategic investment arm, Motorola Ventures, today announced a strategic investment in TuneWiki Ltd., the award-winning provider of next-generation social media music players and related applications. Motorola acted as lead investor and was joined by new investors Intellect Capital Ventures, a venture fund initiative of TeliaSonera, the leading Nordic Telecommunications operator, managed by Intellect Partners, as well as HillsVen Capital, LLC and Novel TMT. TuneWiki’s previous venture capital investor, Benchmark Israel, also participated in the round.
TuneWiki will use the investment to expand and enhance its product offerings for leading mobile platforms and the Internet. The company’s upcoming releases will take further advantage of platform capabilities and new features found in recently released smartphones, including stronger CPUs, always-connected capabilities, larger displays and high-resolution screens. TuneWiki will continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new and exciting ways that connect music fans around the world with new products, including an upcoming mobile game.
“Music is rapidly emerging as a key feature for smartphones, and TuneWiki is changing the experience of listening to music from a solitary experience to a social one,” said Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures. “We believe that TuneWiki has developed an innovative interactive social media player that can dramatically change the way people will listen to and interact with music.”
“Teaming up with a global company like Motorola is very exciting for us,” said Rani Cohen, CEO of TuneWiki. “We are passionate about connecting people through music, and having our applications running in many countries with different languages will allow our users to explore the world of music and better understand its meaning as part of a vibrant and engaged community.”
Very exciting; congratulations to both TuneWiki and Motorola.
Congrats TuneWiki devs, well earned.
This is one of my fav apps, as I love the shoutcast support! Also runs fast easy and Free (Canada does not have payed apps). I hope this buyout continiues to leave a free copy of Shoucast capable tunewiki in Canada. :)
Improvments would be nice but it runs like currently anyway! :)
there still not profitable yet, so not out of the woods yet but getting there.